In keeping with my blog tour, though, I thought I’d share with you a couple of things George and Fred, my Princelings of the East, said to me when I interviewed them last year – after the whole Trilogy had been published.

I start by talking to Fred, originally a princeling, one of a number of descendents of King Cole, although he has now become Crown Prince, the next to inherit. He and his twin brother George live in a castle, Castle Marsh.

“Well, it’s really The Castle In The Marsh, but we let people call us Castle Marsh because otherwise it seems so pedantic.”

What’s it like, I prompt him.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere, and nobody visited until we went on our adventure. There were strict rules, which we didn’t like of course, although now I can see their purpose. We used to have a great time finding all the secret ways in the castle, and listening to things we shouldn’t listen to. But we also spent a lot of time in the library. George is interested in how things work, and I want to know why things work, or just are. I found a number of books on a subject called ‘Natural Philosophy’ and I sort of took it from there.”

What do you think of your first adventure, the one with the time-tunnel, now?

“It was scary but interesting. It was all new so we didn’t know who to trust, or what to make of things. We had to learn a lot of things very quickly. I really enjoyed it though.”

What was the best bit? He has to think long and hard.

“I think it was meeting Lady Nimrod and all the people at Castle Buckmore. It was so exciting meeting someone who knew all about the energy drain, well, had found out so much about it. Nobody really knew what was causing it. George and I more or less worked that out for them.”

This is George summarising his situation for new readers.

“Well, I’m Fred’s brother, so officially I’m a prince now rather than a princeling, and I have the honorary title Prince Engineer George, which I quite like. I live in Castle Marsh, although I still supervise the laboratories at Castle Buckmore. I started working with flying machines while I was there, although now I do most of that work here. It’s easier to communicate with the continent, for one, and the landing network here is softer if one of the new machines gives me trouble.”

As in crashing, I suggest. He laughs and agrees,”it doesn’t happen often. Getting stuck in the reeds because it doesn’t slow down on landing happens quite often, though.”

One of your readers wants to know how you came to be such an intelligent engineer.

“Oh,” he says, looking bashful, “I’m just a princeling you know, I just worked hard, did all the studying in the syllabus and tried to make things that helped life here at the castle from ideas I’d had from reading the books. And some of the syllabus suggested making models to understand principles better, and I ended up making full-size models that were then useful, since we didn’t have much in the way of machinery here. And then I got thinking of problems we had here that needed a solution, and sometimes I found the right machines in incredibly old books. You’d be surprised at the things in our library.”

And now for the Blog Hop…

Welcome to the 25th Kid Lit Blog Hop. The Kid Lit Blog Hop takes place on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month. We have managed to create a dynamic and engaged community of children’s books bloggers, authors, publishers, and publicists, as well as parents seeking out their next great read. So, you are more than welcome to link in and take some time to make some new friends.

We have a few changes to announce. We are sad to announce that one of our regular hostesses, Sue from Kid Lit Reviews, will be taking a short sabbatical from the Hop. We wish her the very best and look forward to when she can rejoin us. We’ll still be checking out your reviews though! On the flip-side, we are excited to welcome a new hostess, Stacie from Beach Bound Books – a fabulous Kid Lit blog. Big welcome to Stacie – we’re thrilled you are joining us.

Also joining us this week are two co-hostesses. The first is Maria from the wonderful parenting blog Music, Teaching and Parenting. The second co-hostess for this week is Jemima Pett, author of the Princelings book series. Be sure to visit Jemima’s on-going Blog Tour forThe Princelings of the East. I can tell you that the buzz is good AND you can enter a giveaway for your chance to win a paperback copy of the Princelings Trilogy + a $25 Amazon gift card (or PayPal cash). Welcome Maria and Jemima!

Please be sure to give each of our hostesses a visit to say a quick hello and we’ll be sure to visit you right back!

Kid Lit Blog Hop Rules *Please Read*

1. We ask that you kindly follow your hostesses. You can follow us any way you choose (Email, GFC, Twitter, Facebook, G+, Pinterest, etc.), but we’ve added our preferences below. If you could just give us a quick “follow” or “like” that would be much appreciated! Make sure to leave us a message if you are following us (i.e., on Twitter or Facebook or on our websites) and we will be sure to follow you back. Thanks! 🙂

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Author of the Princelings of the East, a fantasy mystery series for children aged ten to a hundred and ten; The Viridian System series - scifi for post-YA; White Water Landings, the memoirs of my father's time with Imperial Airways.